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A customer approaches a small table set up among the produce booths at the Hollywood Farmer’s Market.A small sign on the table reads:

Poem Store

Your Subject, Your Price

Yes

The poet, who sits behind the table asks her customer for a topic and is told “Since Wednesday”.In about 3 minutes she types and then reads the following poem to her customer:

Time has moved along

slowly, inching with heat

and asking us to understand

what can happen in a single

day, in the rise of a week…..

The customer, with tears in his eyes tells the poet: “So Martha started chemo on Wednesday” and the poet simply nods.

This above exchange was described in a recent article by Deborah Netburn in the LA Times titled “Poems While You Wait”.The article focuses on the unusual occupation/practice of a poet by the name of Jacqueline Suskin.Jacqueline can be found most days set up at a small booths at Farmer’s markets and similar events . The payment is up to the customers but most pay around $5 for their poem. Suskin always asks if she can read her poem because she considers poetry to be an “oral art”. Some people try to think up far out topics but most ask for a poem that somehow relates to current events in their lives.She has a lot of repeat customers and newcomers are usually surprised at how relevant and poignant their personal poems turn out..

Jacqueline is quoted as saying: “The thing I like about Poem Store is that it is not about me.I’m not thinking about myself. I’m writing about my interaction with a person, and I want to give them something that is just theirs.”

Because she understands that her customers are wanting to buyvegetables and get right home, she works very quickly.. According to Jacqueline: “Part of the exercise is to get down immediately what comes to me.They are like little mantras, little prayers that get handed out”.

Jacqueline thinks that people generally ask for poems that might provide them help with or insight into personal problems:“They want hope, or confidence, or they just need someone to see who they are.. Half the time I feel like I am a therapist or a psychic”.

The poet doesn’t know how she manages to write poems so quickly.“There is just this blurry area there.There is no answers to how I can do it so quickly, so I don’t question it”. She goes on to say, however that it is exhausting work:“This is the most physically draining thing I’ve ever done in my life.When I’m done writing poems for four hours for people I don’t know, I’m like a zombie.My brain is mush”.

Those of you who have been reading my past blogs, can probably see why I was intrigued by this article.The quickness of her responses to requests for poems resembles the improvisational skills of jazz musicians and the storied shenanigans of traditional Zenmasters (seeYEAH MAN: IMPROVISATION IN JAZZ, COMEDY AND ZEN) ).Although Jacqueline seems to be making a living writing poems, there is a selfless element to what she does. One of the elements of the Buddhist, Eightfold Path is right livelihood, which essentially means that a practioner should make a living in a job that is consistent with Buddhist ethics and ideals.Certainly, Suskin’s Poem Store seems to be an example of this.

Jacqueline Suskin’s interactions with the public also remind me a lot of Marina Abramovic’s performance piece at MOMA where she sat staring into the eyes of museum visitors during opening hours for a month.In a post called “The Artist is Present”, I admired the Zen-like quality of Abramovic’s art.Both Marina and Jacqueline attest to the strain of having to “be present” with strangers for hours on end, but both also seem to draw an immense degree of satisfaction from their actions.

I think many artists become depressed or cynical because they feel that the public does not appreciate their creativity to the degree that they would wish for.They suffer alone and are not able to feel that they can find a way to use their creative skills to benefit others.It seems that Jacqueline has found a unique means for accomplishing this, while still supporting herself doing the thing she loves to do..I wonder whether the Poem Store concept, mightbe something that other artists could, with some creative “tweaking”, utilize to energize their own practices?I’d love to hear reactions from some of my artist readers (or anyone else for that matter) about their take on this article.To read the original article, use the following address:

http://www.latimes.com/includes/sectionfronts/A1.pdf

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Over the past month or so my posts have focused on improvisation in the arts and Zen. This was spurred on by Peter Hershock’s suggestion that the outcome of Zen practice resembles jazz improvisation. This is consistent with much of the Zen literature which paints a picture of the awakened life as one of openness, spontaneity, “choiceless awareness” etc. , that results from a “letting go” of the rational mind and the “self”. Relying on more contemporary writers, I have suggested that there is some scientific basis for understanding this process of “letting go”. However, I also started questioning some aspects of this way of understanding what happens during improvisation. This includes improvisation in the arts or in the “social virtuosity” that Herschock says characterizes Zen enlightenment. In this post I continue in this direction and hope to clarify why it is important to be careful about how we talk about this process.

In my last post (The Practice of Yes/No), I suggested that while, to both the performer and the audience, it may seem, that there is an absence of left-brain processes with attendant decision or choice-making during improvisation, this is not a completely accurate account of what is happening. Here I want to go further and suggest that, when it comes to the practice of Zen, individuals who subscribe to this traditional idea that “I am no longer making choices”, could end up creating more suffering for him or herself and for others. Although he is not a Zen student, Lance Armstrong’s interview with Oprah about his use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs provides an example of the kind of thinking that can lead to the kind of suffering I am talking about here.

In the interview Armstrong said: “At the time, it was easy, it just flowed. I was in the zone like athletes get”.

As seen from earlier posts, the Zone or the “flow experience” is one where one temporarily loses the usual sense of self and of being the author of decision-making. It appears that in Armstrong’s case this sense of being free of the usual constraints of selfhood, also was experienced as evidence that he could do no wrong and was not responsible for his own actions. In a recent talk, Jiyu Roshi suggested that something similar often occurs among advanced Zen practioners and their counterparts in other spiritual disciplines and provided examples from his own life.

Jiyu "Jake" Roshi

Think of John Coltrane improvising, Jackson Pollack flinging drips of paint over a canvas or Robin Williams doing a stand up routine. They are totally absorbed in what they are doing, manipulating their “tools” with such rapidity that there appears to be no conscious thought involved. It is not uncommon to hear of such performances described by witness or the performers themselves as being “possessed”, “channeled” , “in a trance” or as being expressions of an “inner self”. In all cases, I think, the intention is to convey the idea that whatever is being expressed is not emanating from that performer’s personhood but rather some other source beyond whatever it is we see as responsible for ordinary behavior. The implication is that there is no conscious thought or conscious choice involved. This sort of language is also used in the Zen literature, as well as in other spiritual disciplines” to describe the state of consciousness and conduct of the awakened life.

The social scientific literature on the experience of “trance” is helpful here. From this perspective a hypnotic trance is viewed as a situation where one person agrees to allow another to direct his or her behavior. Anthropologists have found that “trances” are common in most non-Western societies and are collectively understood to be instances where some external entity (e.g. a spirit) is directing the behavior of an individual. In most cases, when trance is manifested, the person is not held responsible for their actions and becomes eligible for special consideration from the other members of society and especially those designated as healers. The literature indicates that trance is a learned behavior that requires normal mental facilities. What appears to be a relinquishing of normal mental facilities and a sense of self-control is a culturally agreed upon understanding that entails often rather sophisticated mental capacities and maneuvers and does not entail a diminishing of rational thought.

What I take from this literature is that there is a propensity to explain the sense that “I” (i.e. my “self”) is not “in charge” by attributing ones seemingly automatic and spontaneous conduct to some external entity or “agent” (to use the language of post-modern scholars), or force or spirit. Now, according to Buddhist philosophy and post-modern theory (Buddha might be seen as the first post-modern theorist) , whatever it is we call our self is a social fiction; a convenient fiction that we acquire during socialization to allow us to take part in the social activities of our culture. Associated with this “sense of self” comes an important and necessary (at least for the larger society) sense of responsibility and accountability for one’s own actions. This is what allows “societies” to exist. Those who seemly do not have these qualities are considered sociopaths. The actual experience of this absence of a substantial self is seen as essential for the progress of the Zen student. But this experience carries with it the possibility of conduct, which may not be fully “sociopathic” but can lead to suffering of others.

While the language used to describe what is occurring may differ in describing trance, jazz improvisation, comedic improv , expressionistic painting or those who have become awake/alive/present through spiritual practice, these descriptions commonly give the impression that what is happening is not the result of “self-control” or of conscious choice. I suggest that it is necessary to make a distinction between appearances of what is occurring and what is, actually happening. I believe it is possible to preserve the wonder and wonderfulness of improvised performances without fully buying into those explanations that place “agency” somewhere outside (God, spirits, muse etc) or “inside” the person as in references to “inner self”, “real self”, “Buddha Nature” and so forth.

"The Devil Made me Do IT" Comedian Flip Wilson

Following my argument in the previous post, I see such “inspired” performances as not something other-worldly but rather the result of someone who has practiced their craft to the point where thoughts or choices are executed with such rapidity that they appear to be manifesting from somewhere other than the “self”. Such improvised behavior is not a result of somehow replacing left-brain processes with “right-brain” processes but rather an integration of the two, resembling the expanded state of awareness that Fehmi called “Opened-Focus Attention”. It widens the range of information to be used in decision-making to include various signals or sensations not usually considered to be part of cognition.

I suggest that, whether we are talking about improvised behaviors in the arts or as a result of spirtual practice (a la Hershock’s contention that Zazen can lead to “social virtuosity”), the performer is making conscious choices. They are simply being made with such rapidity that it seems that this is not the case. When asked how they do what they do, most Improvisors, in all fields of the arts, will point to extensive bouts of practice that were necessary to be able to improvise.

In his book, Ways of the Hand, Sudow describes looking at his hand while improvising and not being able to predict what it was going to do next, and talking about his hands as having an intentionality of their own. But, the majority of the book consists of detailed description of the practice regimen that he, Sudnow, underwent to get to that point. Basically, he describes how he learned to recognize, through trial and error, which possible notes to strike in order to sound good at any point of the songs being played at breakneck speed. My reading of this is that he, and other jazz musicians are making choices all during a solo, but they are happening so rapidly that they seem as if there is no choosing and no one doing the choosing.

In the post titled “Yeah Man: Improvisation in Jazz, Improv and Zen“, we saw how comedic impov requires that actors “say yes” to each new possibility from others on stage in order to keep the skit moving. Although Hershock used jazz improvisation as a metaphor for understanding the awakened Zen practioner, I believe that comedy Improv is is a better metaphor because the nature of the verbal exchange is closer to what we encounter in everyday social interaction.

The accomplished Improv actor may improvise with such rapidity that it seems that he or she is not thinking. However, the actors must not only think up a possible response to what someone else says but must also think ahead far enough to see whether or not it has the possibility of moving the skit forward or squelching it. In other words, to say “yes” to the antics of another actor, he or she must filter through possibilities and reject those that may lead to a “no” ( that is, behaving in ways that would put a damper on the other actors and the overall flow of the skit). Let’s imagine that an professional improv actor could within a nano- second come up with a response which he is fairly certain will help keep the skit alive but, almost simultaneously, realizes that the audience consists of young kids and so decides against saying what first comes to mind and allows another response (maybe from another actor) to be expressed instead. In other words, even the heat of frantic improvisation, actors have the capacity to say “no“.

So where is all of this leading? Throughout the centuries that Zen has been developed, the idea that the conduct of the of the enlightened practioner is beyond thought and choice has been accepted. The way that this is generally understood is much more sophisticated than that associated with Spirit possession of Shamanism where an outside entity or force is seen as taking over agency of the person.

Yet even among the most pragmatic of the Zen philosophers, there is a tendency to rely on the language of mysticism to account for awakened conduct. This is, in itself, not really a problem, because the kinds of “performances” I have been talking about among arts and Zen adepts is truly wondrous and mysterious. However, it does appear that within Zen and other spiritual disciples, problems can arise when the experience of awakening, the sense of no longer being “self”-directed, results in actions which create suffering for the person and others.

In his book on creativity, Lehrer talks about the thin line between creativity and other pathological states. I looked at this in depth in my post called “Sun Ra: The Thin line between Genius, Crazy and Spirituality”. We all know of artists who fit this category. It is also the case that Artists can become addicted to the flow of their improvisations processes (see “Are You A Flow Addict?”) because they cannot flow in activities outside of their specialty. In Zen, however, the aim is to extend the flow of what Hershock calls “social virtuosity” to all aspects of life. It is here where the sense that “I” am not the actor, the chooser or the “decider” could lead to problems if they buy into the believe that they can not or need not say “NO”.

Although the Zen practioner may not understand their sense of acting without a “self” as indicating a possession of some sort, they do have to come to terms with what is happening to them. A thorough understanding that whatever was originally experienced as having “a self” is, from a Buddhist perspective, erroneous can help provide one with a grounded sense of being OK with their new way of being. However, it appears that it is not uncommon for someone who has opened up such experiences to begin seeing their actions as part of the natural order of things, (expressions of “Buddha Nature”) and thus inherently valid. The number of spiritual teachers that have supposedly reached an awakened state who and gone on to commit actions that create suffering for themselves and others is staggering. It is for this reason, that over the centuries of it’s development, Zen teachers have placed heavy emphasis on the precepts, which maybe seen as ethical guidelines for practioners.(For a nice discussion of the precepts and their relevance to the Lance Armstrong case, see Sean Voisen’s latest article “Zen and the Art of”.

Although these guidelines are not seen as moralistic absolutes (and violations are not considered as “sins”), the fact that they have existed so long in the Zen tradition seems consistent with the view of enlightenment that I am outlining where each action one takes is a matter of making-decisions and choices (albeit very rapidly) and not some supernatural state where actions are dictated from beyond.

So I am suggesting that in all types of improvisation choices are being made. However, in the case of true awakened improvisation, choice is even more salient because being awake/present/alive means the person is capable of attending to a wider range of data to inform his or her decision-making. Because the left-brain processes never really go away, there is always the possibility of making choices that are self-enhancing and possibly result in suffering for oneself and others. Because of this there is no end to practice and it is my opinion that those who choose to follow this difficult path do so because they find this constant practice to be a source of flow, finding satisfaction in life by constantly challenging themselves through practice.

In two previous posts, I expounded and expanded upon Peter Hershock’s use of jazz improvisation as a metaphor for what he calls the “social virtuosity” that can be developed through many years of practicing Zen. He seems to be trying to paint a picture of the phenomenon called “enlightenment” or “awakening” that counters the widespread notion that these concepts refer to a purely personal or individual achievement. As you will recall, Hershock makes the case that in jazz, as well as everyday life, this improvisational virtuosity has a social as well as a personal dimension. I see this improvisational “letting go” as something that is “catchy” and “shareable” and so we all, with practice, can help each other “let go”. I want to follow up with this idea in the next couple of posts because it is one that is hard for most of us to fathom. It runs counter to our basic assumptions about who or what we are and why we might practice a spiritual discipline. Frankly, I want to work through this material as I think it may be helpful for me in clarifying what Zen practice is all about. If you haven’t already, I suggest you go back and read the following before proceeding with this post as it builds on that earlier material.( GREAT UNEXPECATIONS: JAZZ/ZEN IMPROVISATION, JAZZ/ZEN IMPROVISATION: SOCIAL VIRTUOSITY AND PRACTICE )

To begin, let us revisit the work of Lehrer (Imagine: How Creativity Works) which provided a jumping off point for my very first posts on Art And Zen Today. Dealing with jazz improvisation as a form of creative expression, Lehrer cites several studies where scientists were able to observe brain activity while musicians improvised. One of the findings is that while improvising the brains of the musicians showed “a surge of activity in the medial prefontal cortex, an area at the front of the brain associated with self-expression.'” ( p.90) This was to be expected, but they also found shifts in the part of the brain associated with impulse control. When improvising, as opposed to playing a familiar melody, “the musicians were inhibiting their inhibitions, slipping off those mental hand cuffs.” (p.91). For Lehrer, this is another example of situations where creativity is associated with a process of “letting go”, especially regarding letting go of thoughts about what other people may think about what you are doing.

Lehrer argues that the “letting go” process can be learned and he provides some insight into how this can occur by describing what goes on in classes in “Comedic Improv” at the Second City training center. First Lehrer observed that this kind of training involved playing children’s games and just generally acting like kids on clue. He quotes Andy Cobb, one of the instructors:

“it’s about putting people in a state of mind where they’re going to say the first thing that pops into their head, even if it seems silly or stupid. Because that inner voice, that voice telling you not to do something –that’s the voice that kills improv” (p. 102)

Secondly, says Lehrer, the prospective actors “must become aware of everything that is happening on stage…….. “Comic improv, after all, is an ensemble performance: every joke is built on the line that came before.” ( p.103) So after they learn to stop worrying about saying the wrong thing, they begin practicing a technique called ‘Yes, and…..’ . The basic premise is simple: When performing together, improvisers can never question what came before. The need to instantly agree –that’s the “yes” part — and then start setting up the next joke. ” (p.103)

Writing about the same phenomenon, Susan Murphy, the author of Upside Down Zen, provides an example of this process from a book called Improv by Keith Johnstone. Writing about Johnstone’s book, Murphy says:

“….. in one of his examples, the first actor might say, “Ohh!’. and clutch their leg; the second actor might say, ‘Oh my god’, there something wrong with your leg!’ The first actor says, ‘yes, I’ve got a pain in my leg’. The second one says, ‘I’m afraid I’ll have to remove it.’ The first actor then says, ‘Oh, don’t take my leg, I’m rather attached to it.’ Now at that point it’s starting to go dead. ‘No’ has been said; the offer has not been caught. But how about the second time? It goes through the same moves. ‘O, my leg!’ ‘Oh no, not your leg, I’ll have to remove it’ and the second actor says ‘But that’s the leg you took last time!’ So the first actor says, ‘Oh, this is serious’ The second actors says, ‘not…woodworm?’ And so it rolls. The play is alive because all offers are being accepted.’ (pg. 50)

When we are fully present/awake/alive, not only are we less concerned with how others are evaluating us but simultaneously more fully aware of how we are a part of a larger social unit that is mutually creating whatever is to happen next. As mentioned in the earlier posts, our part in any social improvisational “performance” may, at first glance seem rather insignificant. But as Murphy shows, such performances can struggle or die if we either say “no” or signify “no” through our demeanor. So, the key to any successful joint improvisational performance is for all involved to express an attitude of “yes”. I recall the following two incidents when I think about the “power of yes”

I played drums in bands while in high school and college but didn’t play for about 25 years after that. Shortly after I started playing drums again as an adult, I had the chance to sit in with a band consisting of very accomplished musicians and accepted the invitation with some trepidation. I was especially intimidated by the leader who played the trumpet. Mid-way into the song, he turned to me and indicated I should take a solo. For some reason, I found myself playing the solo striking the drums in a way that did not allow the sticks to bounce; producing a muffled sound instead of the usual resonant ring. I recall that once I started the solo, I conjectured that the leader would not like what I was doing. However, right after that thought, I heard him shout “yeah man”, which gave me “permission” to finish the solo with confidence following my instincts. After the song ended , he looked at me briefly and said “fresh!”.

After the incident described above I was motivated to find a jazz group in Philadelphia to play with full time. One of the members of the band was a rhythm guitarist who I and the others judged as not being a good as the rest of the band. During one of our performances, maybe a year after I joined the band, he was taking a solo and I found myself being much more attuned than usual to what he was playing; almost as if he and I were one musician. What was coming from this guy’s guitar was leaps and bounds beyond anything I had heard him play before. As he continued, I opened my eyes, (I usually close them when fully absorbed in what is happening) and saw that all the other members were watching him intently and exchanging glances as if to say “what’s going on here?”. As the guitarist’s solo continued, the others began to utter “yeah man” type of responses and when it was their turn to solo each seemed to perform at a level beyond their usual. Something happened that night, not just at the individual level, but at the group level as well. After that, due to the “power of “yeah man”, we were a better, freer and more cohesive band than we were before.

I think something like this can happen in a variety of everyday situations and plan to explore further how this may work in the next post. While jazz and comedic improvisation is a useful metaphor for understanding the kind of every day “social viruosity” that can stem from Zen practice, they are not the same. So, I also plan to comment on the differences. At least that is the plan. But, who knows? I’m just making this up as I go along. Improvisation or lack of focus????? In the meantime, don’t feel that you have to say “yeah man” to every proposal or opportunity that presents itself. Use common sense and take a look at the movie ” Yes Man” starring Jim Carrey.

The chart above was sent to me by James “The Sax Guy” who also adds some interesting comments to the previous post.

In the last post “Great Unexpectations: Jazz/Zen improvisation“, I pointed to some parallels between jazz and the awakened life, as described by Peter Hershock in his book “Liberating Intimacy”. Hershock points out that Zen practice can lead to a “social virtuosity” which entails being attuned to the needs of others and being willing and able to spontaneously respond in ways that allow for a harmonious social discourse. He points out that while jazz musicians are provided a great deal of creative freedom, each is also oriented towards enhancing the overall quality of the band’s performance and suggests that the practice of Zen can also lead to conduct that somehow enhances the larger social whole.

Hershock goes on to point out that this “awakened virtuosity” includes the understanding that one will often not be the center of attention. This willingness to “sacrifice” for the larger performance of our collective lives is what he sees as the essence of the Zen enterprise. According to Hershock:….the sincere practitioner must be willing to ‘do’ nothing at all and simply allow his or her life to proceed unchecked. Anything else amounts to holding on (obsessive attachment) and holding off (the arrogance of aversion). Like a piece of improvised music, practice is something other than the sum of its individually experienced, factual or behavioral parts, and there are times when the part ‘we’ play in it seems so infinitesimal as to be no part at all. To extend the musical analogy, practice sometimes puts us in the position of playing a simple rhythmic pattern again and again, subtlety opening up the field of time and space on which we find others soloing, expressing the infinite degrees of their freedom. There is no glamour in this “repetition” no exalted sense of individual accomplishment, and yet it is precisely what is needed at times for the music to come fully to life.

While being in the spotlight, as a soloist, is part of what it means to play jazz, it is only one momentary aspect of the whole scene. Equally, if not more important, is being able to provide harmonic support for other soloist and the group as a whole. In jazz, as in other fields, “showboaters” usually do not last very long. Hershock seems to be saying that the so-called “enlightened life”, as it evolves through Zen practice, involves “playing second fiddle” in ways that support the free expression of others” as much, if not more than, being in the spotlight.

Having played drums in a variety of improvisational groups, I relate to the role of providing unglamorous “repetition”. Except for the rare drum solo, the drummer’s main role is to support the other musicians as they play the melody and take their solos. Primarily this entails maintaining a steady beat, but especially in jazz, it can also involve adding embellishments that add to the overall performance of the group. An accent on the bass drum, a change in dynamics or a riff that responds to what the soloist is doing can add a vibrancy to the performance and can affect where the soloist goes in his or her improvisation. I found that I needed to learn to find a sense of accomplishment in providing this supporting role for the group as a whole and forgo the natural inclination to be “in the spotlight”. The most satisfying compliments I received as a drummer were those from fellow musicians who acknowledged that I was both listening to them and providing support or fodder for their improvisations. In a sense, the appreciation was for my being fully present with the other musicians, doing my part to help them be fully present and doing my part to help “the music to come fully to life” (Hershock).

When this happens, says Hershock:

………. our simple contribution is heard in a completely new and always unanticipated way, becoming something much more sublime than we could ever have imagined. In the same way, as long as we are fully engaged in practicing Ch’an, even though we may from an objective point of view be doing nothing out of the ordinary, the meaning of our activity – our conduct- is undergoing continual transformation. Even though we are doing nothing special, our relationships become progressively more open and truthful. (pg. 120)

Hershock’s term “social virtuosity” may be misleading. It does not necessarily refer to being what we often call “socially adept” and it does not refer to an attitude of concern about social injustices or other societal maladies. The awakened person may certainly possess these characteristics, but they are not the essence of what Zen practice is all about. Zen students are encouraged to take the vow of “freeing” all sentient beings” which seems to be a clear message that, as in Jazz, the goal of Zen practice should not conceived as a personal or selfish one, but one that is social, in a certain sense. (See “Four Vows” as practiced at The Vista Zen Center”. http://www.vistazencenter.com/vows-and-precepts)

Understandably, this vow raises also sorts of interpretations as to what is meant by “freeing” (often the word “saving” is used) and what is meant by “sentient beings”, as well as questions about the feasibility of such a task. There has been a great deal of discussion about what exactly this vow calls for on the part of a Zen student. However, Hershock seems to argue that, whatever is involved in fulfilling this vow, it does not entail “doing something”. It does not involve the usual, goal- directed orientation that most people adopt when trying to perfect their behavior. Rather it is the Zen practice of “not-doing” that allows one to fulfill this vow; the “not doing” of spontaneously responding to what is in the moment, of improvisation grounded in years of practice. For a more,in-depth and lenthy theoretical/Zen/philosophical discussion of this topic, click on the FORUMs tab at the top of the page and see Discussion #3, COMMENT D.

For Hershock, “social viruosity” or “awakened conduct” consists of spontaneous responses to what is happening in the moment. It is being present/awake/alive, in a way that also allows or encourages others the freedom to be present with the “business” of jointly carrying on their lives in ways that minimizes suffering.

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Howard Thurmond

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As a follow up to “Buddha as a Performance Artist?”, I was going to talk about the “flow experience” as a way of understanding why artists and spiritual seekers often impose restrictions on themselves. But I received a comment on that article from my Zen teacher that made me decide to abandon my agenda of writing about flow and “go with the flow” instead. Among other things, he wrote:

I would like to suggest that it might be as important to be a performance audience. (You can see the whole comment in Discussion #2 of the FORUM).

Now, frankly I’m not altogether sure what he meant by this but decided to not worry so much about the intended meaning and riff off of this statement just to see where it went. Notice that the emphasis on the word “PLAY” in the description of this blog If you listen in when young kids are playing together you will notice a lot of apparent “non-sequiturs” where one will pick up on what one says and responds spontaneously without being concerned whether he or she is sharing the same meanings as their playmates. In play, the objective is simply to keep the play going and to have fun, which is actually one of the defining charticteristic of “flow”. So what follows is my response to Jiyu’s Roshi’s comments even thought I’m not sure what he meant or intended.

In the FORUM PAGE of this blogsite there is a rather long discussion about the place of meaning in art. Artists may have a variety of meaningful intentions or inspirations in art (e.g. religious, political, comments on the art world etc.) or they may have none at all. However, it seems that the nature of communication in the arts is that we can never be sure that the artist’s meaning is shared isometrically by the audience (see examples in the FORUM). However, I do believe that when an artist in any field is creating in the present moment, that some portion of the audience will share this experience; that is, witnessing that art can bring a person into the present moment (i.e. to become more alive or awake, as suggested in the previous post). What is the difference between those that do and those that do not? All we can say is that those who do are willing and able to be transported, at least temporarily, into the present moment themselves. Something about viewing or hearing the art piece moves them to share that state of mind with the artist, but they must be open to that happening.

Remember this quote from Marina Abramovic regarding those who sat across from her during her performance at MOMA?

Some of them are really open and you feel this incredible pain…….when they are sitting in the front of me, it’s not about me any more. It’s very soon, that I’m just mirror of their own self.

Those who had profound experiences in Marina’s presence were, for whatever reason, open to having such experiences, while others in the exact same situation were not.

The historical Buddha, who according to Robert Thurman, was the consumate “performance artist” supposedly held up a white flower during one of his meetings with his disciples. One, Mahakasyapa, is said to have silently gazed at the flower and smiled. The Buddha then acknowledge that Mahakasyapa had attained enlightenment; in other words he shared with the Buddha a profound experience of being present, alive and awake.

Who knows why this happened to Mayakasyapa and no one else. Jiyu Roshi often says that the reason for Zen practice is to become enlightenment prone. By consistently and persistently carrying out activities (chiefly meditation) that can provide temporary experience of being fully present, one prepares oneself for more permanent shifts in this direction. Most likely Mahakasyapa had done the work necessary in order to be open to that shared experience with Buddha. The Zen literature is full of similar stories about such “awakenings”.

Likewise, by engaging in artistic practices and/or opening oneself to art that requires”presence”, one can begin to see through the cultural and mental patterns that keep us from experiencing this on an ongoing basis.

It requires wisdom to understand wisdom: the music is nothing if the audience is deaf. Walter Lippmann

Buddha as a performance artist? Not so far fetched according to Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman:

Robert Thurman and the Dalai Lama

Say you are a buddha and you’re free of suffering and you feel totally great–as happy as a bee and a clam and at one with the universe- and then you see all of these miserable people. Yet what good would it do for you to go and give them a big grin and a hug, or smother them with joyfulness? They’ll just get freaked out and be paranoid and say, ‘What does this person want? So instead, a buddha has to develop some strategies – some art – to, first of all, open that person’s imagination to the fact that there is a world where they don’t have to be miserable all the time. And then he has to help them with a method of how to move from their paranoid corner of misery into the great ocean of the bliss of the universe that you, a buddha, perceive. (The Wonderful Ambiquity of Art, Inquiring Mind, Spring 2002, pg. 7)

Thurman points out that the term upaya is usually used in Buddhist literature to refer to the “means by which compassion- the universal compassion of an enlightened being- manifests in action to enable other beings to find freeedom from suffering” (pg. 7) Usually translated as “skillful means”, Thurman suggests that upaya is best translated as “art”; art in the broadest sense, as in “liberal arts”.

One of the simplest definitions of “art” that I have seen says essentially that it is a set of skills learned to create something. This is a pretty broad and useful definitionas it allows us to talk about artful skills in all aspects of life, not just what we traditionally think of as “the arts”. It should also be pointed out that whatever it is that is being created, whether a painting, a garden, a dinner or one’s self/life, there can be variations in how creatively it is done.

Interestingly, even in “the arts”, the definition of art is constantly changing. Back in 1917, when Marcel Duchamp entered a urinal in a prestigious art exhibit the boundaries of art were being challenged. Since then, as creativity, as I defined it ( See Art, Zen and Creativity) has become an integral value in the art world, artist have been coming up with new ways of expanding the boundaries of this world. It is commonplace today to hear comments such as “That’s interesting but it is really art”.

So, given all this, it does not seem too far fetched to consider Buddha, Christ and a variety of other spiritual leaders as performance artists. Like Marina Abramovic, they realized that their insights were better demonstrated than talked about. What are the insights to be shared or taught? Essentially, to be present, alive or awake. But, this is not easily conveyed through didatic teaching and, as Thruman says in the quote above, people need to know that it is possible to be present, alive or awake and what that might look like.

What all of these “performance artists” have in common is that they found it necessary

Montano and Hsieh Performance Piece

to supplement didatic teachings with demonstrations of their realizations by performing them in their everyday lives.

The other thing all of these artists (the spiritual artists as well as the performance artists) have in common is that their practices consist of setting up obstacles that provide them with challenges that, when overcome, can lead to self-transformation. Usually these take the form of some sort of “rules” governing their performances.

Montano and Hsieh restricted how far apart they could get, the time they would remain teathered, and specified that they could not touch. My last post on Abravovic specifies many of the rules that she set up for herself during various performance pieces.

In fact, the taking on of restrictions or obstacles is something found among all creative people. It is common in all of the arts to hear of people setting up certain boundaries or restrictions for themselves as means for challenging themselves to greater creativity. In fact, I think that committing oneself to any creative pursuit necessarily involves confronting barriers. For instance, I commonly hear painters say something to the effect of “my painting is going badly” which simply means they are in the midst of resolving some issue in the activity that they voluntarily have decided to take on; one that can lead to a “creative breakthrough” later on.

So called spiritual artists do the same thing by, for instance, committing to a certain amount of time for meditation or committing to follow certain vows or codes. For example, in formally becoming a Zen student a person commits to following four vows and to following 16 precepts. Within Zen these “restrictions” are not seen as equivalent of “sins” in that transgressions will lead to going to hell or something like this. Rather they are restrictions that one voluntarily takes on in “performing” everyday life and like the “obstacles” set up by artists like Abramovic are ultimately designed to help heighten self awareness; in other words to become more alive, awake or present.

In the next post I will look at this phenomena more closely and see how it relates to both artists in the conventional sense as well as “spiritual artists”.

I happened to see “Marina Abramovic The Artist is Present” on HBO the other night and would highly recommend it to this crowd of readers. It is a documentary that follows the Serbian performance artist as she prepares for a retrospective of her work at The Museum of Modern Art inNew York. It is available on Netflixs.

The retrospective included either videos of or reenactments (using hired artists) of performances carried out by Abramovic over the course of her career. Photos of some of those early performance pieces are included below, along with some commentary.

Marina plays "game" stabbing knife between fingers rapidly for hours.

“The main problem in this relationship was what to do with the two artists’ egos. I had to find out how to put my ego down, as did he, to create something like a hermaphroditic state of being that we called the death ” self”

Marina on her relationship with Ulay.

Ulay and Marina screaming at one another as Performance Art

Performance piece with Ulay

IN 2002 Marina lived for 12 days on three platforms in full view of the public. the ladders leading down from the platforms had rungs made of butcher knives.

A large part of the MOMA retrospective consisted of videos or reenactments of these and many other past performances by Abramovic. However,the main attraction was the artist herself who sat motionless in a chair in the museum while gazing into the eyes of whoever wanted to sit across from her. Thus, the title of the exhibit (and the documentary), “The Artist is Present”, was based on the fact that Marina was in the museum during every moment that the Museum was open during the 3 month exhibit; 7 1/2 hours a day, 6 days a week.

The title seems to have a double meaning. Not only was she present in the sense that she was there at her show every hour of every day- something, I’m sure, no other artist has accomplished- but she was totally “present” with everyone who sat before her.

In the film, Klaus Bresanbach , the curator for the exhibit, said:

What is so beautiful about the MOMA performance, she’s treating actually every human being she is encountered with the same attention and the same respect.

As you can see from the photos, many of those who waited in long lines to be in Abromovic’s presence were profoundly affected. Many people openly wept and I found one person online who descibed herself as having an “out of body experience” while gazing into the artist’s eyes. In the film Marina says of those who sat with her:

Some of them are really open and you feel this incredible pain…….when they are sitting in the front of me, it’s not about me any more. It’s very soon, that I’m just mirror of their own self.

In other words,Marina was being “in the present” in the sense that I talked about this concept in the earlier post “What the ______was that Video About? In the film, Marina tells us: It doesn’t matter what kind of work you are doing as an artist. The most important is from which state of mind you are doing what you are doing, and performance is all about state of mind.

It is clear from the film and from other interviews with Marina that she sees her art as a means of transforming herself. By confronting challenges and fears, she is able to create, not a new art object but a new self. This reminds me of Suzuki’s statement as follows: The Zen-man is an artist to the extent that, as the sculptor chisels out a great figure deeply buried in a mass of inert matter, the Zen-man transforms his own life into a work of creation.(D.. Suzuki, Zen and Japanese Culture)

Zen Meditation

There is much about Abramovic’s art practice and her life that reminds me of serious Zen practioners. Consider this quote from the movie:

The hardest thing is to do something that is close to nothing. It’s demanding all of you because there is no story anymore to tell. There’s no objects to hide behind. You have to rely on your own pure energy and nothing else.

I am sure that any Zen student who has sat for hours in a prolonged meditation retreat can relate to her description.

Although it is clear that Abramovic is aware of and has practiced various meditiation

Marina at the end of a day of sitting.

techniques, she does not identify herself as a spiritual seeker. As she said in a joint interview with Ulay:

…as we speak about a reserve of energy, about our bodies, you might think Zen Buddhism is behind our work, or other philosophies, but we’re really interested only in experience.” (http://www.flashartonline.com/interno.php?pagina=articolo_det&id_art=197&det=ok&title=MARINA-ABRAMOVIC-AND-ULAY)

Whether or not Abramovic’s art is spiritual, it involves a practice that resembles what seems to be required in all genuine spiritual pursuits; the practice of raising ones awareness to the point where something new is a possible outcome. This is nicely summed up in the movie when Marina says:

Artists have to be warriors. Have to have this determination and have to have the stamina to conquer not just new territory, but also to conquer himself and his weaknesses.

This overlapping of spiritual and artistic practices is the central focus of this blog.

I’ve been thinking a lot about “aliens” recently. Primarily because my brother Jim and I, who comprise the “band” called Shrink Wrap, were asked to play at an opening of an exhibition at the Oceanside Museum of Art called “Beneath Alien Seas”. The exhibit consisted of “Light Sculptures created by William Leslie, in collaboration with Alessandra Colfi and Nathan Harrenstein. Since it is hard to describe these beautiful and mysterious pieces in words, I’ve included a short video of clips and stills taken at the Opening.

I suggest you check out the video before reading on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3V7o07bN2Q&feature=c4-overview&list=UUVRR6l491Aafe34H23PwdNA

After we played for the Opening, my brother wrote on his facebook page:

This was the first time I can remember being

asked to be as “out there” as possible.

“Alieness” accomplished (I think) and great fun playing for

such a progressive crowd.

This was the first gig we had played in a long time where we both felt completely free to play the “weird” music that we both enjoy.We don’t play together often but coming together to create music is how we have been bonding together as brothers for many years.

Like many kids with no siblings, I had an imaginary playmate, who I called “Jim”. So, when my brother came into the world, when I was 5, my parents decided to named him after my “playmate”. I think for most kids at that age, the sudden appearance of a sibling seems pretty incomprehensible and miraculous. This was all the more the case for me as it seemed that I, somehow, had something to do with the Jim’s manifestation (perhaps my first “ego trip”).

As a toddler, Jim slept in a crib like that pictured above, with bars all around and wheels on the legs. Whenever he woke up, Jim used to grab onto the bars and shake the bed furiously, like a disgruntled prisoner hoping to shake loose the bars of his cell. If you read my brother’s posts on Face Book, you will see that things have not changed much.

My first memory of my brother is being awaken in the middle of the night by the sound of Jim’s shaking crib. Not being fully awake, I opened my eyes and saw him moving the crib across the wooden floor, inching closer and closer with every violent shake. In my memory, he had sort of maniacal grin and bright gleaming eyes. Peering through the bars of the crib he looked like something from “elsewhere”. He was from “elsewhere” but it turned out that he just wanted to play with someone in the middle of the night.

Before we took up instruments, our play together usually consisted of putting on shows for the family or friends. This flair for the dramatic was perfected in capers designed to torture a long series of babysitters.

Having materialized my own personal playmate out of my imagination, it was only natural that I directed these events. I was the schemer and instigator and poor Jim, always the “team player,” would carry out my plots and usually get the blame when caught. Our most famous caper was when I talked him into letting me tie a rope around him and lower him from an upper story window. I don’t recall how I secured him, but Jim managed to swing back and forth in front of the large picture window in the living room below where the sitter was watching TV. I imagined him looking like Mary Martin flying across the stage in the play Peter Pan, but to our elderly babysitter it was a reason to retire from the babysitting business.

When Jim and I periodically come together as Shrink Wrap, weirdness usually ensues, and so it was extremely gratifying to be able to draw upon our “inner aliens” and feel that we fit right in at the “Under Alien Seas” event. As you can see from his design for the cover of a Shrink Wrap CD, my brother’s “inner alien” is not far beneath the surface.

The term “alien” refers to whoever or whatever appears to be strange, foreign or different from oneself. In my last post, I mentioned that Theolonious Monk was part of a subculture that valued being “far out”. We all have stories about hearing music or a musician when we were young that had a life-changing effect on our lives. Monk was one of those musicians. When I was 10 or 11, I often listened to a crystal radio set that I had build in bed under the covers. The set was able to pick up stations from an incredible distance away. One station I listened to was WLAC (I think) in NashvilleTennessee, where I first heard blues and what was, at the time, called “race music”. I also recall hearing Monk on a station that played jazz and probably was located in Cleveland. Hearing any jazz at that time was a novel experience but when I heard the melancholy yet joyously weird sounds of Monk, I realized for the first time that there was a whole other world “out there” beyond the boundaries of Fremont, Ohio that needed to be explored.

In the next post, I’ll explore the importance of deveoping our “inner alien” in the practice of Art and Zen. By the way, do you know who is posing in the photo below? Another Brother from Another Planet? Maybe. I’ll reveal his identity as I further explore the realm of “inner space” in upcoming posts.

Last week I was sitting on the beach at Waikiki, re-reading Lehrer’s Imagination: How Creativity Works, looking for a way to answer my own questions posed in my last post about the bizarre behavior of Thelonious Monk . Lehrer writes:

…creativity isn’t just about relaxing showers and remote associations. That’s how Dylan wrote “Like a Rolling Stone”, but that’s not the only way to make something new. The imagination, it turns out, is multifaceted. And so, when the right hemisphere has nothing to say, when distractions are just distractions, we need to rely on a very different circuit of cells.. We can’t always wait for the insights to find us; sometimes , we have to search for them. (p. 56)

Lehrer points to two kinds of creative processes “divergent” or Dionysian and “convergent” or Apollonian-generally right and left brain processes. Different art forms may require more of one than the other and different artists may emphasize one over the other, but it appears that any creative process utilizes both. For instance “aha” moments usually are followed by long periods of refinements and revisions.

Waikiki Beach

So, there I was in a definite “Dionysian” mode but with a problem that seemingly called for an Apollonian, left brain solution to a problem of my own making. In my “Waikiki State of Mind” I could not muster the concentrative powers that Lehrer says is necessary for right brain creativity. I did have a series of points in mind but to tie them all together would have required writing a dissertation and violate Rule Number One for Bloggers: “Be Brief”.

Fortunately an “aha” moment came the next night while watching the sunset and drinking a Mai Tai in the Hula Lounge at the OutRigger Waikiki Hotel. Here is what I said to myself: “Why don’t I just provide the essential facts of the case and let each reader come to his or her own conclusion? It is a bit lazy on my part (see exchange between Jane and me in Comments) but it should be more fun to write and perhaps to read as well. Of course, there is always the chance that the readers won’t understand it at all”.

This last thought made no dent at all in my “Waikiki State of Mind”. Rather, I convinced myself that if the blog made no sense at all, I might be dubbed the “Bob Dylan of Modern Blogging”. You gotta love the Waikiki State of Mind.

Hula Lounge

So here are some essential “facts”. See where they lead your mind.

—————————————————————————————————————–

Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please.Mark Twain

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1. The first set of facts were contained in the last blog post describing my being

spanked on stage by Thelonious.

2. Lehrer’s book provides the following information:

a) Artists who don’t rely on left-brain dominant processes of creativity often use benzedrine or amphetamines to help keep focused. He uses the poet Auden as an example.

b) Subjects in a research study whose moods were experimentally manipulated to be sad, produced more creative art than those who were not sad.

c) 80% of the writers at the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop had depressive disorders.

d) 40 % of a sample of creative people had been diagnosed as bi-polar.

3) Monk was diagnosed with all sorts of mental disorders but the most recent and credible assessment I could find was that he suffered from “bi-polar disorder”.

5) One source suggested that Monk was just generally tired from having to play night after night during the time period I saw him.

6) When I played in bands, I found the creative aspects of collectively coming up with new tunes and arrangements to be more creatively fulfilling than performing those tunes over and over before an audience.

7) Monk was known as a hard worker and a devoted family man.

Monk and Dizzy

8) Monk was an inveterate performer who was surrounded by other jazz musicians who valued being “far out”. Lehrer devotes a chapter to the importance of social influences in creativity.

shaman

8) Some scholars maintain that roots of contemporary theater and show business is Shamanism.

Cab Calloway

Sly Stone

Lady Gaga

9) Slapstick comedy has been one of the oldest and simplest forms of entertainment, and is a type of entertainment that tries to reach people by the most basic forms – physical comedy. Whether it is a pratfall, a pie in the face, somebody turning and hitting someone in the head or any number of other forms of physical comedy, slapstick comedy is one form of entertainment that can be understood without words.

10) Zen literature is full of instances of teachers striking students or monks hitting one another as a means of communication considered more direct and effective than spoken language.

Keisaku

Mu Chou asked a monk, “Where have you just come from?” The monk immediately shouted. Mu Chou said, “I’ve been shouted at by you once. ”Again the monk shouted. Mu Chou said, “After three or four shouts, then what?” The monk had nothing to say. Mu Chou then hit him and said, “What a thieving phony you are!”

The master of the Chinese monk Shui-lao kicked him in the chest, and it resulted in a satori [enlightenment]. Afterwards the monk said, “Ever since the master kicked me in the chest I have been unable to stop laughing.”

11) In Zen, and many other spiritual traditions, there are accounts of what is often referred to as “crazy wisdom”. Here is how novelist and Zen advocate, Tom Robbins describes the term:

For want of a precise definition, we might consider that crazy wisdom is a philosophical worldview that recommends swimming against the tide, cheerfully seizing the short end of the stick, embracing insecurity, honoring paradox, courting the unexpected, celebrating the unfamiliar, shunning each and every orthodoxy, volunteering for those tasks nobody else wants or dares to do, and perhaps above all else, breaking taboos in order to destroy their power. It’s the wisdom of those who turn the tables on despair by lampooning it, and who neither seek authority nor submit to it.

13) A)The distinction between psychological illness and creative thinking is wafer thin, new Swedish research confirms, arguing that there is a feasible explanation for why the age-old myth of genius bordering on insanity could in fact be true.http://www.thelocal.se/26708/20100518/

14) Thelonious Monk is famous for his jazz stylings which frequently bent the rules of music. Monk’s jazz is famous for its rebellious use of broken chords and skewed scales. Monk had the uncanny ability to “play the wrong notes right” and mixed it with backbeats that gracefully stumbled into brilliant surprises around every bend.
Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_made_thelonious_monk_famous#ixzz21hUrZ6Kd

Congratulations. You’ve made it to the end, which means that you rank way above average on the “The Blog Reader Attention Span Index”. Although ostensibly this was an exercise in understanding Monk’s behavior, it, hopefully, also had some personal relevance as well. I said at the beginning that I was not going to draw any conclusions from the so called “facts”. However, I feel compelled to simply say that the main thing I took away from this collection of “facts” is that while concepts like “creative genius”, “enlightenment” and “left or right brain” are necessary for communicating, they can also be limiting in ways that are problematic. This is behind the emphasis on “non-duality” in Zen. I’ve touched on that theme in earlier blogs and it will certainly crop up again. But, an even more “bottom line take-away” from this exercise is beautifully expressed in one of my all time favorite quotes by Howard Thurman:

Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.

I would love to be able to see the mental images conjured up in readers’ heads by the title of today’s post. Was I really spanked by a Monk? Yes, by Thelonious Monk to be precise.

Monk was one of the first jazz artist I heard as a kid and is regarded by many to be one of the early geniuses of modern jazz. The incident I am about to relay came to mind several times while reading Lehrer’s book Imagine: How Creativity Works. Here is the story of my intimate encounter with Monk’s creativity.

Soon after my wife and I moved to Philadelphia in 1967, Thelonius and his band played at “The Showboat” on Lombard St. for three straight nights. We attended all three nights and became friendly with Charlie Rouse, Monk’s sax player and the other band members. Over the course of three nights, we also spent time drinking with Baroness Nica Von Koenighswarter, who was friend, patron and caretaker to both Charlie Parker and Monk.

The stage in the Showboat was behind the bar and behind the bar stools, separated by a narrow walkway, were stadium-like seats fitted with tables. To get to the stage, musicians enter the club like any customer, and climb a short flight of stairs at one end of the bar. For all three nights we sat at the bar with the Baroness and other avid Monk fans.

Baroness “Nica” and Monk

The first night of the series, Monk arrived about an hour late, long after his band had gone up on stage ready to play. When Thelonius finally entered the club, he carried a long-handled shoe horn from his hotel. As he stepped through the door, he immediately tucked the shoe horn under his arm, like a riding crop or swagger stick, and began marching around the club. For another 30 minutes he strutted around with the shoe horn – back and forth along the bar, and up and down the bleachers- like a general in the Prussian army. At first it was entertaining but as the club owner got more and more irradiated, the audience began to grow impatient as well. All the while, his band watched their leader from the stage with their instruments ready.

Eventually, after much pleading from Rouse, the Baroness and the owner, Monk went to the stage and started playing the first tune. He placed the shoehorn on the music stand of the piano and began playing as if nothing unusual had happened. However, when it came time for his solo, Monk stood up, grabbed the shoehorn and used it to peck out his solo, one key at a time.

If you know Monks music, you can imagine that the solo did not really sound that unusual as he sometimes played one-fingered solos. After, his solo was finished, instead of sitting back down, he backed up a bit, knocking over the piano bench. He then moved away from the piano, doing his little “Monk dance” across the stage (see short video clip below).

That night I was sitting near the end of the bar, close to the steps going to the stage. Fueled by the many cocktails consumed during the long wait, I charged up the stairs with the intention of picking up the toppled piano bench, while Monk did his dance. As soon as I leaned over to pick it up, I felt a sharp sting of the shoe horn across my rear end. Much to the delight of the audience, I had been touched by genius. As would be expected from Thelonious Monk, the Melodious Thunk of the spank fit right into the tune they were playing.

The next night, in talking with the band members, it was revealed that Monk had been high on “speed” and that , after the gig, he had been remorsefully “crying like a baby”, according to Rouse. I’ve thought a lot about that night since then, wondering exactly what we had witnessed. Was it: Drug abuse? Monk’s creative genius? Showmanship? Psychological disorder?

I will take a stab at my interpretation in the next blog. To get to the bottom of this(excuse me-I couldn’t resist), I’ll be going back to Lehrer’s Imagination: How Creativity Works for some help. In the meantime, let me hear your interpretations, theories, reactions and stories.